When Axton Betz-Hamilton set up her first utility bill at college, she soon realized something was very, very wrong.
It turned out she’d been a victim of identity theft—and it had destroyed her credit rating.
In 2001, when she was a 19-year-old student, Betz-Hamilton’s new utility provider demanded a $100 security deposit to turn on her service, citing her credit score.
“I thought it was because I didn’t have enough credit,” she told Fortune. But when a copy of her credit report turned up in her mailbox six weeks later, she learned the opposite was true.
Companies don’t care. I had a collection agency call me before wanting paid for an unpaid Direct TV bill from when I was 13 that my dad had taken out in my name. I had to get him to read the part on Direct tv’s terms stating that no one under 18 can activate service 4 times before it finally registered to him and they dropped it. Still had to get it removed from my credit report too.